56 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



Xiphura atrata, L., of which two or three of each sex were taken, 

 but it was far from common. Trichiosoma, sp. ?, was very 

 common flying over birches, and Cimhcx, sp. ?, was not 

 common. Single sjjecimens of two not very common beetles, 

 Cosynibotis pectinicornis and Melandrya caraboides, also were 

 taken. I had some coccons of L. callunce from larvae got in the 

 previous autumn, and from them emerged two specimens of the 

 huge ichneumon, Ophion undidatus, a male and a female. In 

 1918 I obtained six in the same manner. I never saw it wild. 



Towards the end of the month the weather became very cold, 

 and this was accompanied by an almost entire disappearance of 

 insects, and for more than a month hardly a moth was to be 

 seen in the woods, sitting on tree-trunks or flying, nor did the 

 beating-stick rouse any, and none were to be seen flying at dusk 

 or coming to a light at night. And yet, though thus keeping 

 themselves invisible, there were insects about, as shown by th& 

 pairing-trap. When females emerged in my breeding-cage, 

 which was kept in a warm room, I put them out in the garden 

 at night in the trap. In this way I got pairings of S. pnpidiy 

 N. dromedarms andiV. canielina between June 30th and July 15th, 

 — not always on the first night of exposure, but often after two or 

 three days. 



On July 23rd I gladly left the district for South Devon, 

 where I should have gone much sooner but for the impos- 

 sibility of getting rooms at an earlier date in the place in 

 which I wished to stay. There I came into summer again, which, 

 I was told, had been unbroken by any cold spell such as had 

 troubled the Midlands. 



2, Isis Street, Oxford. 



CONTRIBUTIONS TO OUR KNOWLEDGE OF THE 

 BRITISH BRACONID^. 



No. 5. — SlGALPHID^. 



By G. T. Lyle, F.E.S. 



(Continued from Vol. LIT, p. 181.) 



This is a group of small obscure insects constituting, in 

 Ashmead's classification, a separate sub- family, and placed next 

 to his sub-family Chelonince, immediately after the tribe Cali/ptini 

 — a division of his sub-family Blacini. Other authors have been 

 inclined to link the group more closely with the Chelonidce, but 

 to me this seems somewhat arbitrary, for though both have the 

 abdomen connate above and forming a carapace, in the Chelonida 

 the character is the much more pronounced. In other characters. 



